Fundamentals of Sociology of Culture

Term:
Spring 2009

Subject Code:
GSOC

Course Number:
5196

Critically analyzing the ways in which the term culture is used by social scientists and other scholars, we consider a broad range of activities and objects, ranging from the rarified to the ordinary, the prestigious to the everyday. We consider culture in relation to certain groups' power and authority in constructing and maintaining - or contesting and transforming - the symbols and legitimacy of art science, popular cultural forms, and the shared meanings of life. Among the forms we examine are social status, gender, race, and other social identities. The theoretical orientations on which we draw derive from Weber, Durkheim, Marx, Bourdieu, R. Williams, Geertz, Goffman, the Frankfurt School and the American production of culture approach.